Chapter 17 #3
I’d done it. I’d claimed the Dragon. I wasn’t sure whether to descend into hysterics or sobs, but a low and agonised groan stole my focus before I could decide between the two.
Hendrix lay in a puddle of his own blood, smoke rising from his clothes as the lingering burn of the lightning smouldered against his skin.
I gritted my teeth as I moved closer to him, crouching down to glare at the bastard who had so flippantly risked my life for his own gain.
I had assumed he was unconscious but his eyes flickered beneath his lids before opening, his green gaze meeting mine before slipping to my hair.
“It’s silver,” he wheezed, gripping a lock of my long, wet hair in my fingers and tugging it forward.
I frowned, then blinked in surprise as understanding filled me and I simply stared at the lock of hair tangled between his bloodstained fingers.
“How…” I began, staring at my hair which was no longer dark but that same, silvery opalescent hue of the Dragon’s scales. It had marked me when it had chosen me to be its Summoner. I really was its keeper.
Hendrix wheezed a cough, blood trailing from the corner of his lips as he stared up at me, his fingers slipping in the strand of hair he still clung to.
“You’re dying,” I told him as I surveyed the jagged wounds across his chest and abdomen where the Dragon’s talons had ripped into his flesh.
I should have been glad, should have spat in his face and taken sick satisfaction in his demise.
Instead I felt as empty as I’d declared him to be.
Hollow. Void of any feeling on the matter of his death aside from a bite of contempt because he had been so willing to risk my life only to have ended up losing his own.
He bit out a laugh laced in agony. “If only.”
“I should finish you myself. But then I wouldn’t be able to take back those amulets you stole from me,” I sneered, rising and taking a step away.
His fingers were forced from my hair and his hand thumped down against the bloodstained branches beneath him.
“I suppose I’ll just have to come back to claim them from your corpse. ”
I made to turn away, fully intending to leave him there to die, though the thought had my stomach twisting with bile.
But he deserved it. Deserved worse than that.
He’d been more than willing to watch me die if it served his ends, had been happy to be the cause of my death.
I was only allowing nature to take its course.
I had no reason to feel any guilt about it.
Hendrix’s hand snapped out and he grasped my ankle.
“You can’t leave me here,” he rasped, and I sneered at him.
“Watch me,” I said cruelly, though my heart was racing frantically, but I refused to let him see even a flicker of hesitation in my gaze.
“Not because you might be burdened with guilt,” he grunted, still maintaining his grip on my ankle. “But because you can’t complete this task without me.”
“I don’t need you,” I hissed.
“No,” he chuckled as if the pool of blood that surrounded him was nothing but a mere inconvenience. “But you do need the key to the labyrinth.”
I’d yanked my ankle from his hold while he’d spoken but I stilled at his words, a chill seeping into my bones as they sank in.
“There’s no key,” I muttered, trying to dismiss the strange chill which had run down my spine at those words, the whispered warnings hissing from every leaf above our heads. Some innate sense was warning me not to ignore his words, to listen despite my desire to scorn them…
“There is. And I possess it. Are you willing to risk reaching the labyrinth alone to find your passage barred and only regrets of my death for company?” Hendrix pressed, a smug smile on his face even as he lay dying at my feet.
“You don’t have it.”
“I do.”
I crouched down and started tugging at his clothes, feeling for pockets, pulling blades free of their hiding places but discovering little else.
Hendrix laughed again, more blood slicking his lips. “If you’d wanted a chance to remove my clothes, you only needed to ask.”
“In your dreams,” I spat, shoving away from him and standing again. “Where is it if not here?”
“I really will die before I tell you, lightwing,” he replied smugly. “But if you help me get back to the castle, then perhaps we can come to a new deal.”
“What deal?” I snapped, not wanting a part of any agreement with this bastard.
“An alliance,” he said as if I’d ever wish for such a thing with him. “You’ve claimed the Dragon. Perhaps there’s more to you than I wanted to admit. I, in turn, have the Bear, the Fox and the key. If we work together, we can find the rest and end this curse.”
I shook my head, wanting to deny him, to tell him to take his offer and shove it up his ass because he hadn’t thought me worthy of one before.
He only wanted this deal with me now because I’d seized what he could not and he was bleeding out in this cursed place with no hope of escape before night fell without me.
I could still leave. I could go and come back here tomorrow to take his two amulets from his corpse…
assuming nothing stole his body in the night.
But the key. If he really did have the key and it truly was the only way to gain entry to the labyrinth, then none of this would matter without it.
I could find and capture all thirteen spirits and still die here in these cursed woods without ever winning the boon.
“I hate you,” I growled as I gave in to the inevitable.
“I’m yet to find anyone living who doesn’t,” he said as if that were a declaration to boast of.
I crouched down and held my hand out for his. “An alliance. Equal partners or nothing.”
“Equal,” he agreed, clasping my hand, though I didn’t miss the clear amusement in his green eyes at the statement.
By the spirits, I despised this male.
With a curse, I took hold of his hand and hauled him to his feet. He swore and staggered but managed to loop his arm around my neck and let me support him as we began what was certain to be a laborious trip back to the castle.
I couldn’t ignore the wet slick of blood which soaked into my skin, nor the drops of it he left in his wake at every step.
He’d be lucky to make it halfway back to the castle on his feet and if he fell, I had no hope of being able to drag him the rest of the way myself.
We’d have to move fast and lay our hopes in the hands of the spirits.
“Would you like to hear a tale of my prestige?” Hendrix asked as we stepped into the shadow of the caves once more, his words a rough grumble against my ear which sent a shiver tumbling down my spine.
“No,” I hissed in reply. “I simply want this over with as fast as humanly possible.”
“It will be a slow journey indeed then.” Hendrix barked a laugh which only made his wounds bleed more, and I winced beneath the weight of him as I led him back through the caves.
I had no idea if he would even make it to the castle, let alone survive the night once we got there, but I had no choice beyond helping him now. At least until I got what I needed from him because then, all deals would be off. And I would forge my own path once more.